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Short Stuff: Mariko Aoki Phenomenon · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Ben's here too, sitting in for Dave.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Ben.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is short stuff, the New Reality.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: That's right. I'm glad that you found this because I
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: have experienced this in a slightly different way, and I
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: never knew that it was a thing, and now I do.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea it was a thing either.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I don't remember where I heard of this. I'm guessing
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you me, it just seems like the kind of thing
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: she would have sent me. But we have to shout
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: out McGill University, IFL Science and Science Times for helping
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: round this idea hour this story out. But we're talking
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: about something called the Marico Aoki phenomenon, which is a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: very specific phenomenon. It's where some people go into a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: bookstore and are overwhelmed with the urge, sometimes an urgent
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: urge to poop in that bookstore, not like in the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: aisles of the bookstore, but to go to the bathroom
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: in the bookstore to poop.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so here's my story. In high school, still one
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: of my very best friends, Jim, I say, you know, Jim,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Jim and I had an afternoon radio show, which was
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: over the intercom of the school, and it was basically
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: instead of the principal reading the daily announcements, we asked
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: if we could take it over and round it out
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: with jokes and top ten lists and what have you.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: So we had WRHS was our dumb little show.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So wait, this was officially sanctioned. It wasn't pirate School Radio.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. It was us in the principal's office
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: like on the microphone every day. I mean that was
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: looking back, it was the start of stuff you should know,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: which is funny. Oh wow, But we did. When we
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: would meet to write the show. Every day, we would
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: meet in the empty auditorium where they did school plays,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and every time we were in there, both of us
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: had to poop and we used to laugh about it
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and talk about it. And now that I see sort
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of some of the similarities between that empty, quiet auditorium
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: and a sort of a large, maybe cavernous, quiet bookstore,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I now know this is a thing.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I was not expecting a personal anecdote from you for
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this one.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this goes back to the eighties, Jim
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: and I. He'll laugh when I tell him this is
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: an actual thing.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Well, that's appropriate because the Marico Aoki phenomenon goes back
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to the eighties too, all.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so we should probably talk about where it
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: came from, right.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it came from a Japanese woman named Mariko Aoki.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: That's right. And she sent a letter to a magazine
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: in what nineteen eighty five and the issue of han
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: no Zashi? Is that right?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Close enough?
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  Speaker 2: How would you say it?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Han no Zashi?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Didn't that what I said?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Okay? And she wrote a letter to the you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: like a letter to the editor kind of thing, where
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: she said, I'm not sure why, but since about two
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: or three years ago, whenever I go to a bookstore,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I'm struck by an urge to move my bowels. They
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: printed it, just the letter to the editor, and then
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: got so many responses from people saying me too, that
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the next issue had a fourteen page feature article on
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  Speaker 2: the headline was the phenomenon currently shaking the bookstore industry.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it became like such a thing that it
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: took her name, Marico Aoki. Even though there has been
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: people have turned up mentions of this kind of thing
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: as far back as the fifties, I could not find
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: any original source material of that, but I think I'm
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: willing to take IFL Science on their word if they
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: were the one where I got it from. But in
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  Speaker 1: Japan it kicked off like a trend, right, So there
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: were kind of like game show informal studies of what
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: exactly was going on, and they did turn up some data,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: not exactly like you know, peer review shorthy data, but
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: they found that about ten percent of the respondence in
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Japan feel the urge to poop when they go into
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  Speaker 1: the bookstore. So the Marryoki Aoki phenomenon is it covers
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: about ten percent of the population. I'm squarely in the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: ninety percent. You're apparently in the ten percent.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I haven't tested it with a bookstore,
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  Speaker 2: but there are similarities between. For us, it always felt
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: like like Jim's theory was that it was a big
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: being alone in a very big, large, empty quiet.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Space like a colon.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I guess so, but you know, a bookstore isn't empty,
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  Speaker 2: but it's not like going to a concert. It is
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  Speaker 2: generally pretty quiet, so and there's like some there's a
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: privacy aspect I think to a bookstore. I mean I'm
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: thinking larger bookstores, not like you know, the tiny mom
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  Speaker 2: and pops, which I love. So I don't know that
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: was his theory. Lease, so I guess I'm in that
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  Speaker 2: ten percent. I'll go to a bookstore and I'll let
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: you know.
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  Speaker 1: We'll report back for sure. As a matter of fact,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: we should live stream on stuff. You should know, like
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: one of our social it's true.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, you might He'll be right back. Should
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: we take a break, Yeah, all right, we'll come back
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: and talk about some of the theories right after this.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: If you want to know, then you're in luck. Just
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: listen to Chuck selfus.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Chuck, I think I speak on behalf of at least
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: half of the people listening. Would you and Jim go
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: poop at the same time, or would you like take turns?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that part. I don't even know if
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: we went and pooped or if it was just like,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: oh I got a poop, I see, I see.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, so yeah, anyway, we're back.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're back. There is no like serious science probably
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: about this, but there are a lot of pretty interesting theories,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: and one of them is something that we've talked about.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: In fact, we did a whole show sort of, didn't
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: we about the gut brain axis we did.
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  Speaker 1: I don't.
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  Speaker 2: It's something about like when you approach the front door
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of your.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: House, that's the brain bladder connection.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I think this is kind of similar though, right, No, totally.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I think the second theory, the smell of books, which
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: we'll get to, is more brain bladder connection. But the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: gut brain axis would have come up in I guess,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: like I can't remember what it was, but we talked
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: about like a whole episode about how there's neurons in
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  Speaker 1: your gut and like your brain and your gut, your
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: central nervous system and your enteric nervous system communicate to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: one another. And so that's probably the likeliest explanation for
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: why somebody would feel the urge to poop in a bookstore.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some other you know. To me, I
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  Speaker 2: think it's all of these things added together. There is
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  Speaker 2: that there is also this sort of connection of like
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  Speaker 2: people like reading on the toilet has long been something
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  Speaker 2: that people do, right. People are on their phones now,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: but in the old days, you had that magazine. Rack
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: still got a magazine right next to my toilet, and
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: we'll read a good magazine. So that connection. Maybe that
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  Speaker 2: subconscious thing of when you're among those books, your sphincter
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: just a moocks, just a little bit, maybe.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So whatever it was, whatever, if it's
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: like the smell of books, that's kind of usually put forth.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever it is that you associate with a bookstore, and
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: then you poop in the bookstore. That's where your gut
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  Speaker 1: brain access would take over and you develop this association.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So when you walk into the bookstore, your brain goes, hey, gut,
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  Speaker 1: we're in a bookstore. You better get busy pooping.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, makes sense. Another one, of course, is a bookstore
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  Speaker 2: oftentimes there's a lot of squatting. Yeah, if you want
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  Speaker 2: to book down on that bottom shelf, or you want
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  Speaker 2: to peruse for a little while on the bottom, you're
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  Speaker 2: going to be squatting down. And humankind didn't evolve to
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: poop like we poop. Now you're supposed to squat. And
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: if you've ever in in that dead squat position with
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  Speaker 2: your butt just barely above the ground and all your weight,
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  Speaker 2: like everything lines up in such a way to where
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  Speaker 2: your body goes, oh, it's go.
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  Speaker 1: Time, it's time, yeah, and he goes.
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  Speaker 2: So you're in there already, it's quiet. You got the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: smell of the books you're squatting.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how could anybody not poop?
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: You may have a coffee, that's a big one.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of people say, yeah, people drink coffee and
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  Speaker 1: bookstores and coffee makes you poop.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think it's like all this stuff sort
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  Speaker 2: of adds up to, oh my god, I'm in a bookstore.
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  Speaker 2: I've got to go.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: There's another theory that isn't specifically identified as from Japan.
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  Speaker 1: But if it's not from Japan, I will eat my
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: hat and I don't even have a hat. I'll go
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: buy a hat to eat it. If this isn't a
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Japanese theory, that because life is stressful, when you walk
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: into a bookstore, a bookstore is very calm, and so
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you feel relieved and so you want to leave yourself.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever seen you wear a hat.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I've got a like a mud hens hat that man,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: my hair has to be pretty messed up for me
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: to wear it, but that's my hat.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think i've ever seen you in a hat
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  Speaker 2: in sixteen years.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Well, that's by design.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: I've seen you in shorts maybe twice.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: That was by design as well. What do you think.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: You get some nice legs thanks, And then of course
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: you have to think about or at least consider the
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: frequency illusion aspect of this. It's a type of confirmation bias,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: whereas once you know this is a thing, you start
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: to just it's in your head all of a sudden,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: and you're making that connection where it previously didn't exist,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: So you know, you have to kind of consider that
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what skeptics say. They say there's no such
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: thing as the Mark Aoki phenomenon, that actually it's it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: people just have heard of it, and maybe she had
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: some sort of Pavlovian training where like the smell of the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: books made her want to poop, but just talk about it.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It getting published and becoming a thing in Japan, then
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: traveling around the world, people started saying like, oh, yeah,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I've pooped in bookstores too, So then anytime they poop
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: in a bookstore from that point on they notice it.
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  Speaker 1: It confirms their theory that they're susceptible to the Ma
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Aoki phenomenon, and it just becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: But at the same time they're also ignoring all the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: times they go to the bookstore and don't poop, or
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: they go to pet Co and have to poop. You
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: don't want to do although you could just poop in
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the aisle and blame it on the dog. But still
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that's part of the frequency illusion.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So I'm curious to hear from people
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: two types of people, people that have experienced this, whether
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: in a bookstore or like my situation, like a large
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: empty room, or bookstore employees who are like, dude, you
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: don't know that the nightmare that we live.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine, you know, Yeah, I hadn't thought
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: about that. Man's better thought for the bookstore employees.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Huh, wasn't there Seinfeld where George had to go to
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: the bathroom in a bookstore?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he found the pastoral scenes very conducive to and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: then Elaine cuts him off. He had to buy a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: book because he took it in the bathroom.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: That's funny.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: There you have it, a book of Impressionist paintings. If
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you well, no, this is not a regular stuff you
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: should know episode. Even though in this episode we found
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: out the origin of stuff you should know, even I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: didn't know the origin story. And since I'm so hyped,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I think that can only mean that short stuff is out.
• 11:36
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• 11:39
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